Quicksilver (Fae & Alchemy, #1)

by Callie Hart

“My people have been persecuted my whole life thanks to those vicious rumors. We proved centuries ago that we had nothing to do with the curse that afflicted your kind. The Balquhidder Clan was one of the five families charged by your dead King Daianthus with finding a cure for the Fae curse. We were instrumental in breaking it. I’ve come here of my own free will to help you heal the daughter of a tyrant who has a bounty on my family’s heads. Anyone would think you’d be grateful, Warrior.”

“What are they screaming?” Carrion breathed. Lorreth answered in a horrified tone. “Release us.” Release us! Release us! Release us! I heard it now, as if the words had been translated in my mind. Hundreds of thousands of people, begging to be released.

The captain of Madra’s guard, Harron, stood inches from Lorreth’s back. His eyes were orbs of scuffed metal, pure quicksilver, gleaming inside the sockets of his gaunt skull. His lips were thin and peeling, his skin wrinkled and translucent. He broke into a wide grin, displaying shattered teeth, when I noticed the dagger he was pressing against Lorreth’s throat.

spoken. It could only have been him, because I had met the other figures who sat on either side of him. They knew perfectly well who I was. To the right of the dais sat Belikon. To the left… Madra.

Brother? But… how could Belikon be her brother? Human. Fae. Vampire. The three regents all adopted similar expressions of satisfaction as they took in our confusion.

“You really think she’s your ally? You’re wrong. She’s the one who stilled the quicksilver and closed the gates between all of the realms.” Belikon snorted. “Of course she was. We’ve always known it was Madra. And yes, we were angry at first. But it’s amazing how unimportant these little tiffs seem after centuries.” “Indeed,” Madra agreed. “And after all, I did only close the gate because you sent that beast through to assassinate me. So there was much to forgive on my end, too.”

Our people have been at war with Malcolm for… for—” “War?” Belikon sneered. “We haven’t been at war, you fool. I’ve simply been feeding my brother’s army.”

Belikon had refused to send supplies and food down to Irrín. He’d embargoed silver—the only thing capable of permanently killing Malcolm’s kind—and had refused to send any of it south. And why would he waste supplies on warriors he didn’t intend to survive? Why would he arm warriors with deadly weapons if he didn’t actually want them to kill their enemy?

Fisher spoke at last. “The horde had gathered at the gates of Gillethrye. Tens of thousands of vampires. Our armies in the south had been drawn into a battle with a much smaller force, but it had been a distraction. We found out that the better part of Malcolm’s feeders had marched on Gillethrye too late. I couldn’t move enough warriors through my shadow gate, so I brought Ren and some of the other wolves to try and save as many as we could.” “The arrogance,” Belikon hissed. “Seven warriors against twenty thousand. He truly thought he could hold them back!” Fisher continued on, ignoring the king. “We didn’t get here in time. The horde was already inside the city when we arrived. The Fae had all been out in the streets, celebrating the Festival of the First Song, which only made the horde’s job easier. They swept through the city like locusts, feeding on anything they came across, either draining their victims or consigning them to an agonizing death.”

left Ren and the others, and I went to find Malcolm. I’d decided I was going to try and kill him by myself. But it wasn’t Malcolm that I found. At least not at first. It was the bastard who murdered my mother.” Belikon ran his tongue over his teeth. “You think you can shame me by airing my sins? Think again. Your bitch of a mother was supposed to be the greatest oracle of our time, but she was useless.” He cackled. “I admit it. As soon as she was done pushing out the brat I forced upon her, I slit the bitch’s throat. I was sick of her fucking lies.”

“Malcolm arrived at the head of his host, and that’s when I learned that he and Belikon weren’t adversaries at all. They were allies and had been working together since before the blood curse. I didn’t know that Madra was also in league with them until today. I wanted to bargain for the few citizens of Gillethrye who were still alive, and Belikon proposed a deal. He found a coin. One used only in Gillethrye. The smallest denomination of currency the Fae had here. He said if the coin hit the ground and landed leaf-side up, Malcolm would call off his horde and leave the city without hurting another living thing. But if the coin hit the ground and landed fish-side up, he would take the city as his own and destroy it, and I would have to leave those still alive to their deaths and meet him on the field of battle at a later date.”

And, until the outcome of the coin toss had been decided, he wasn’t allowed to speak of the deal or of the fact that Malcolm and I were brothers. And he agreed. He was so desperate to save a handful of peasants that he made the blood oath with me.”

“I tossed the coin…” he said. “And I caught it!” Malcolm

“The coin never hit the ground,” I whispered.

“Well, I created the most diabolically lethal labyrinth I could conjure in my mind, dear sister,” Malcolm said, as if this should have been obvious. “I hid Belikon’s coin at its center, and then I created this colosseum around it and filled the stands with the perpetually burning bodies of all the creatures our poor little bleeding heart here had wanted to save. All he had to do to end their suffering was find the coin and make it fall to the ground. Obviously, it would be too late to save the Fae from death, but at least it would end their suffering. And then,” he added with a dramatic flourish, “he would be free to seek his vengeance by calling me out onto the battlefield.”

sent some of my other friends to play with him sometimes. From time to time, I would visit him myself. We always had such scintillating conversations. And then, one day, he made it to the center of the labyrinth. I have to say, I was shocked. I thought it would take him a lot longer than it did. What was it, Fisher? A hundred years?” “A hundred and two.”

He spent the next eight years trying to find the coin once he reached the center, didn’t you, my love?” For the first time since the three regents had started toying with him, Fisher flinched. I did, too. My love. Of all the things Malcolm could have called him… Fisher… He gave me the smallest shake of his head. Don’t. Don’t give them anything. It’ll only make them worse.

Ducking low, he spun, reversing the weapon so the tip of the blade pointed down. Dropping to one knee, he clasped the hilt in both hands and drove the sword in an arc, back and up… … into Belikon’s stomach.

“My name is Carrion Swift. But there was a time when I was known as Carrion Daianthus. Firstborn son to Rurik and Amelia Daianthus.”

“An Alchemist, after so many years. I wasn’t surprised to learn that Madra tried to kill you all off centuries ago. She was always so afraid of your kind. I suppose it would have been impossible to track all of you down, though. It’s notoriously difficult to detect magic in half-blood Fae. She probably allowed one or two of them to slip through her fingers. They must have hidden in her city and started families and bred. Our Fae blood must have been diluted over the centuries, reduced to less than a whisper in a bloodline. But then you come along. I have to say, I’m impressed. A genetic throwback with your kind of power is inconceivable. Y’know, there was a time when I worked very closely with your kind.” He considered me. “It was a very talented Alchemist who discovered the key to my blood gift. She was remarkable in many ways. Deeply disappointing in others. Perhaps I should keep you alive once this is all done. I seem to be in need of another miracle, thanks to that bastard Daianthus wretch.”

“Earth. Air. Fire. Water. Salt. Brimstone. Quicksilver. The full gamut. More power than any Alchemist I’ve ever encountered. You are capable of restoring me to my power and a lot more besides.”

“He wore that silver plate at his throat every day he was trapped here in this labyrinth. A gift from his mother, I believe. Pure silver imbued with some particularly nasty magic. I couldn’t have torn it off him if I’d tried. Edina always was such a thorn in my side. I promised to let Fisher go if only he gave me a taste. I promised to wipe Gillethrye from his memory, so he’d forget all about this place and what had happened here… if only he fed from me just once. I wanted to know the bliss that would come at the points of his teeth. But he denied me. He chose to stay and suffer. And then you. A pathetic, weak human? His mate? It’s offensive.”

Tal was second only to Malcolm in power. He hid it from the king so he wouldn’t kill him. He can turn you. My mind was so fuzzy. I couldn’t process what he was saying. Taladaius wanted to turn me? I don’t… I can’t be a feeder, Fisher. Please. Fisher shook his head. “You wouldn’t be. You’d be like him.” I wouldn’t die? “No.” Would I have to feed? “We don’t know.”

“Tell us what it’s like,” she said in a clear, pleasant voice. “I’m—” I cleared my throat. “Sorry. Tell you what what’s like?” “Sex,” the other girl said, tilting her chin. “With that male. Our father’s champion.” “With… Fisher?”

This… was really happening? They were gods?

He looked up at me, his hands resting on his knees, and said, “You know who I am?” I bowed my head a little, again looking down at my boots. “Zareth. God of Chaos.”

Zareth grunted. “And you are Saeris. Sister to Hayden. Daughter to no one.” He nodded to the inkwork on my hands. “Also, mate to my champion.”

I’ve spent a great deal of time watching the threads of the universe, waiting for one such as you,” he said. “An Alchemist, at last, to reset the balance and clear the way for what is to come.”

“Here, we stand at the edge of the universe. The roots you see, growing down into the earth, into the quicksilver, are the anchors of fate.” He tipped his head back, his eyes traveling upward into the boughs of the tree. “The silver leaves above mark all the realms of our domain. My family are the stewards of all you see here. We water the roots of fate. We train the boughs and prune the leaves to prevent rot and decay. You see the bough there? The blackened one?”

“There is a rot spreading throughout my domain, Saeris,” he said. “Realms that are infected with that rot have to be summarily destroyed to protect the rest of the tree and prevent that rot from spreading. Do you understand?”

“You aren’t the only Alchemist in the universe, of course,” he said. “There are millions of you out there. Even in your realm, even in the city you once called your home, there are hundreds of elemental magic wielders who can command the quicksilver. But when I consulted the fates long ago, I was very intrigued when I saw you, Saeris Fane. Not just you. Kingfisher, too. I saw an axis in the flow of things. A burning knot in the tapestry of all that would come to be. When I focused and saw the strength of the bond that connected the two of you together, I admit I attempted to sway the fates.”

“You were supposed to have been born Fae, in the same realm as your Kingfisher. So I separated you. Hundreds of years before you were born, I shifted the events around your birth. Moved the pieces on the board and placed you far away, in a realm that should never have come into contact with his. But I watched as the boughs of the universe grew against their nature and aligned in such a way that you would still meet. I foresaw then that no matter how the boughs and branches of this tree were manipulated, you and he would always collide. There was nothing I could do to stop it.”

Zareth considered me for a moment. Inhaling sharply, he rushed past me, around the tree, to a point on the bank of the moat where the grass was pressed flat against the earth… and the boughs of the tree were twisted into bare, blackened knots. I hadn’t noticed it from our vantage point just now, but from here, it was plain to see that a huge chunk of the tree was dying.

“In nature, there is a counterweight to everything, child. Light has darkness. Life has death. Joy has sorrow. And good has evil. That law applies, no matter which realm you exist in,” he said with a broad stroke of his arm that encompassed the many, many leaves on the tree. “Threads like you and Kingfisher, that are drawn together and cross on an axis create a well of power. The energy the two of you draw together attracts an equal and opposite counterweight. Every possible future where the two of you are together ends with the vast majority of this tree dying. None of us can foresee any other way.”

“So… you’re saying that Fisher and I are responsible for the end of the entire universe?” Zareth shook his head. “Not you personally. But the moment where you meet, along with the moment you become mates, is a spark. The flame in the dark that draws the moth. It was incumbent upon me to try and stop that spark from taking place, b...

“Does Fisher know any of this?” Zareth snorted. “No. I orchestrated events so that he would be brought here as a young male. His mother had just died, and his disposition wasn’t very polite.” Zareth frowned, as if the memory were troubling even now. “He made an enemy of my family. He was only allowed to live because I demanded it. I’d spent a great deal of time studying the various outcomes and paths of this universe once you and Kingfisher...

“Pathways that lead down roads, where both the way and the destination are blocked to even my sight. And in all of these veiled futures, where a chance still exists for life, there is one common factor.” I didn’t want to know. Couldn’t hear it. This was way too much pressure. Zareth knew this, I was sure, but he plo...

“These oaths mark you as my ward. They protect both you and Fisher from the unwanted attentions of my brothers and my sister.” “Protection from them?” “They would rather kill Fisher and roll the dice on what comes next. They would prefer to weather the storm on the horizon and replant our tree once the slate has b...

“For them, I’m willing to take a chance. If you truly accept Fisher as your mate, then you must agree for the thread of your life to be severed from the tapestry of the universe. Once you do, none of us may affect your future. We won’t be able to see you at all, nor will my brothers and my sister be able to interfere with timelines or events that affect you, either. You’ll be on your own.”

Why the hell didn’t that sound reassuring? “How would you do it exactly?” “By transforming you into something that has never been seen before,” he answered cryptically. “The universe cannot focus on that which it does not recognize.”

hesitated. Turned my head. My ears. The tips of my ears were pointed. They poked up through my mussed hair, as if they had always been this way. I opened my mouth to curse, saw the state of my teeth, and my heart set to racing. Canines. I had very long canines. And they looked sharp.

“As far as we can tell, you’re a half-vampire, half-Fae. Something none of us have ever seen before. As of now, we’re not sure which traits you’ve adopted from the Fae and which you’ve adopted from the vampires. All our healers are sure of is that you’re no longer human.”

I punched him in the chest. “Ow! What was that for?” I shoved a finger in his face. “Because you’re an asshole. I’ve known you since I was fifteen!” He shook his head, hands palm up in the air. “And? I’ve known you since I was a thousand and eighty-six. Do I win a prize?” “You didn’t tell me that you were heir to a fucking Fae throne!”

“So, Fisher’s father took you to Zilvaren when you were little to save you from Belikon. He glamored your ears and your canines so you wouldn’t stand out. He brought a bag of books along with you, so you could learn about your heritage and return when the time was right. And… some woman saved you?”

“Her name was Orlena,” Carrion said. “Orlena Parry. She was a slave in Madra’s palace. But that night, the night she pulled me out of the quicksilver, she fled the palace and escaped. She went to the Third, knowing she could get lost in the crowd there. And that’s where she stayed. She found work as a seamstress and secured somewhere for us to live. She raised me like I was her own son.”

“I had the books that Finran brought for me, about the Fae and my people. Orlena got married when I was nine and took the name Swift. She had a daughter not long after. Petra. Petra grew up and had a daughter, too. The books were passed down the female line, and so was I. They kept me out of trouble as best they could and made sure I kept a lookout for signs that the quicksilver had opened again. They thought it was cruel that I was stuck in the Silver City and that I should go home and rule my people.

Gods, how interlinked this all was. Fisher’s father had been the one to secret the true heir to the throne out of Yvelia. A thousand years later, his son had been the one to bring him back. It meant something. What, I couldn’t say, but I was sure we were all going to find out soon enough.

He’d then stayed for over an hour and explained much of what had happened after I’d bolted back into the labyrinth. I’d been sick with guilt when he’d told me how all three of them had nearly died at Belikon’s hands while they bought me time to find the coin. He’d called me crazy when I’d apologized for taking so long and said that it had felt like a miracle when the wind had swept away all of the death magic and allowed their swords to channel again. Madra had fled through the quicksilver immediately. Belikon had put up a prodigious fight, but the second Lorreth’s angel breath had torn out of Avisiéth, he, too, had fled like a fucking coward.

“No, he said that your father’s blood was used to create the blood curse that allowed Malcolm to become a vampire, and that a vampire can’t drink from the living members of the bloodline that created them, nor can they enthrall them. He said that drinking from you should have killed Malcolm instantly, but because he had lived for so long, he was too powerful.”

There was magic in Fisher’s eyes. But… less quicksilver.